Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game Thursday night versus the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a good way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
